Mark Van Cleave studied instrument and mouthpiece design while studying with his teacher and mentor Jerry Franks. Jerry was a clinician for the C.G. Conn company in their glory years and was instrumental in many of their most successful trumpet designs. Jerry eventually became a clinician for Bach where he continued to influence many design aspects.

Mark got his first hands on training while working at the Vincent Bach factory in the early 1980's. One of his first duties was to recapture the original Vincent Bach mouthpiece designs. Over the years, the original shaped cutting tools used (at that time) to create the Bach trumpet mouthpieces would become dull and then would be sent for sharpening. This was repeated over and over until a new cutting tool was needed. They would then copy the OLD tool that had been re-sharpened over and over to create the new tool. As you can guess, this resulted in the loss of the original Vincent Bach designs. The 7C models were actually BIGGER than the 3C when Mark arrived.

One of Mark's original hand cut prototypes from the early 1990's.

The new CNC produced model.

Throughout this process, Mark learned much about what made a mouthpiece play well and what aspects of the design had little or no real effect upon the playability of the mouthpiece. Once these critical aspects of mouthpiece design were learned, a few prototypes were made and passed around for testing. Nobody would give the prototypes back!

After leaving Bach, Mark worked with famous mouthpiece maker Bill Ratzenberger. Bill designed the original Jet-Tone mouthpieces that were made famous by players such as Maynard Ferguson, Bill Chase, Doc Severinsen, Al Hirt, Bobby Hackett, and many more. While working with Bill, Mark came up with several designs that he played for many years until they wore out. In the mean time, Bill passed away and his equipment was sold ...INCUDING MARK'S ORIGNAL DESIGNS.

Now with the aid of 3D reverse engineering scanners and CNC lathes, it has been possible to recreate Mark's original designs for production once again.

Over the years, almost every player that had the opportunity to try one of Mark's prototypes asked to be put on "the list" as soon as they were available...

...Now the long wait is over.